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An Evening at Red Rocks with Primus and The Flaming Lips

Primus and The Flaming Lips played to a sold out crowd at Morrison, CO’s Red Rocks Ampitheatre last Wednesday. The festive night offered a spectacle that included monkey masks, confetti, dancers dressed like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and The Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne’s signature “space bubble.” Primus opened up with Frizzle Fry ’s “To Defy The Laws of Tradition,” and continued with a lengthy set that included “Southbound Pachyderm,” “Over The Falls,” and “My Name is Mud,” as well as the new songs “Tragedy’s a-Comin’, “Jilly’s On Smack” and “Lee Van Cleef” that will be on their forthcoming Green Naugahyde. Claypool emerged wearing the aforementioned chimpanzee mask in the middle of the show, carrying his whamola and stomping around the stage while playing the song “Whamola” from his earlier Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade project.

The Flaming Lips took the stage next, emerging with a loud jam while Coyne climbed into a giant inflatable ball as images of The Wizard of Oz ’s “Dorothy” played on a giant LED screen that was placed behind the band. The Lips then continued their expected psychedelic weirdness with a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Speak to Me,” the first track off of the classic rock band’s Dark Side of The Moon that the Lips were planning on covering in its entirety. Rather than segue “Speak to Me” into ‘Breathe” right away, the Lips decided to pay homage to the “Dark Side of The Rainbow” video that is widely circulated on the internet with a take on the OZ classic “Over The Rainbow.” The set continued on with “On the Run” and “Time,” as well as The Wizard of Oz songs “We’re off To See The Wizard,” and “If I Only Had A Brain.” Throughout the set, Dorothy impersonators danced around and, during Pink Floyd’s “Money,” balloons filled with fake dollar bills showered down on the audience. After two hours, the Flaming Lips left the stag to cheers and applause before returning for “Do You Realize??” off of their classic 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.